Riffs on Children of the Cure – Ode to Beethoven

June, 24, 2020 | 1 Comment

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    The Conversation

    Our re-analysis. found significant increases in harms with both the antidpressants used in Study 329, compared to the placebo. Steve Smith/Flickr, CC BY-NC
    Antidepressant trial’s upended results show need for sharing all data
    September 17, 2015 1.06am BST
    Authors
    Jon Jureidini
    Research Leader, Critical and Ethical Mental Health research group, Robinson Research Institute, University of Adelaide
    melissa Raven
    Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Adelaide
    Disclosure statement
    Jon Jureidini was a founding member of Healthy Skepticism, and has provided expert analysis and opinion for plaintiffs about Study 329 and Forest’s paediatric citalopram randomised controlled trials.

    Melissa Raven was a founding member of Healthy Skepticism.

    With expert insight and analysis on vital issues from coronavirus to climate change, our articles will always be free to read. But by supporting The Conversation, you can help ensure the free flow of accurate information – essential to guide, reassure and inform in times like these. A small donation can help The Conversation ensure that you and others keep hearing from academic experts. (hmmm – skepticism applies to everything published regardless of how much we may admire or trust what theydo )

    The Conversation UK receives funding from these organisations
    We believe in the free flow of information
    In 2001, a “landmark” study published in the prestigious Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry purported to show the safety and effectiveness of using a common antidepressant to treat adolescents. But soon after its publication, both researchers and journalists raised questions about the research. And in an article we published today in the BMJ, we’ve shown that the original published findings were biased and misleading.

    Our re-analysis has implications beyond Study 329; it has repercussions for all of evidence-based medicine.

    The Illusion of Evidence-Based Medicine
    Exposing the crisis of credibility in clinical research
    Jon Jureidini, Leemon B. McHenry
    The Illusion of Evidence-Based Medicine
    An exposé of the corruption of medicine by the pharmaceutical industry at every level, from exploiting the vulnerable destitute for drug testing, through manipulation of research data, to disease mongering and promoting drugs that do more harm than good.

    Authors, Professor Jon Jureidini and Dr Leemon McHenry, made critical contributions to exposing the scientific misconduct in two infamous trials of antidepressants. Ghostwritten publications of these trials were highly influential in prescriptions of paroxetine (Paxil) and citalopram (Celexa) in paediatric and adolescent depression, yet both trials (Glaxo Smith Kline’s paroxetine study 329 and Forest Laboratories’ citalopram study CIT-MD-18) seriously misrepresented the efficacy and safety data.

    The Illusion of Evidence-Based Medicine provides a detailed account of these studies and argues that medicine desperately needs to re-evaluate its relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. Without a basis for independent evaluation of the results of randomised, placebo-controlled clinical trials, there can be no confidence in evidence-based medicine.

    Science demands rigorous, critical examination and especially severe testing of hypotheses to function properly, but this is exactly what is lacking in academic medicine.

    Jon Jureidini is Professor of Psychiatry and Paediatrics, Critical and Ethical Mental Health Research Group, Robinson Research Institute, University of Adelaide, Australia.

    Leemon B. McHenry is Professor Emeritus in Philosophy at California State University, Northridge.

    ‘The Illusion of Evidence-Based Medicine is a brilliant exposé of the negative influence of the global pharmaceutical industry on the integrity of medicine. Every medical student, doctor and patient should read this account of the ways in which medical evidence is distorted to meet the needs of Big Pharma for profits. Importantly the book points to ways in which medicine’s independence can be reclaimed through improved governance and public funding.’ – Professor Fran Baum

    ‘In the race to find treatments and a vaccine for COVID-19, it’s more essential than ever that society can trust drug companies seeking regulatory approval. The Illusion of Evidence-Based Medicine is the latest in a long line of books that caution us not to hold out much hope.’ – Laura Spinney, Nature

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